59-year old ​Mukesh Ambani’s​ ​strategy of reaching 90% of India’s population through a newly-launched telecom brand Jio has the potential of placing him at the top 3 in the Hurun global rich list, the Shanghai-based firm in its finding said.Muntazir Abbas | ETTelecom | Updated: September 08, 2016, 15:59 IST

Telecom baron Sunil Bharti Mittal and family skids to ​the ​10th slot, a level down from the 2015 rich list.

59-year old ​Mukesh Ambani’s​ ​strategy of reaching 90% of India’s population through a newly-launched telecom brand Jio has the potential of placing him at the top 3 in the Hurun global rich list, the Shanghai-based firm in its finding said.

In a recent interaction with ET, Ambani said that over the last four or five years, the group has invested about Rs 250,000 crore and expects to see the returns now.

Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani has recently become the first Indian woman member of International Olympic Committee.

Bharti Enterprises founder Sunil Mittal (58) and family, with a wealth of Rs 50,300 crore​, slipped to ​the ​10th position from 9th in 2015 owing to 13% decline in the flagship company Bharti Airtel’s share price, the report added.

With the rising competition from a new fourth-generation or 4G technology entrant Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel had invested more than $4 billion in 2015 into network improvements and is invest​ing​ $9 billion over three years.

Azim Premji (71) also known as the czar of the Indian IT Industry completed 50 years of leading Wipro has been ranked at 6th position with 74,700 crore wealth, closely followed by HCL’s Shiv Nadar (71) with Rs 73,000 crore worth wealth.

Premji joined Wipro at the age of 21 years and after returning from Stanford University transformed an enterprise focused on vegetable oil business to an IT company in 1981.

On the other hand, Shiv Nadar lost Rs 21,000 crore in 2016 and slipped to 7th from 4th position in 2015, according to the Hurun report.

Other individuals operating in the domestic mobile device space also featured in the list that includes Karbonn Mobile’s Pradeep Jain at 136th position with Rs 5,400 crore net worth, Sudhir Hasija at 199th rank with Rs 3,200 crore wealth, and Micromax’s Rahul Sharma and Rajesh Agarwal with net worth Rs 2,500 crore each.

Lava International co-founder Hari Om Rai also made it to the 214th position in the Hurun list with a net worth of Rs 2,900 crore.

Men dominate the 2016 list, with just 4% women occupying a place. Bengaluru-based Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (63) of Biocon, with a net worth of Rs 10,800 crore featured as the only self-made women entrepreneur in the report.

“Despite an above average monsoon and a steep 24% wage hike, India Inc. fails to cheer the market, resulting in a muted growth in average wealth for 2016,” Hurun Report India, managing director and chief researcher Anas Rahman Junaid said.

Junaid added that subdued investors interest in e-commerce and online businesses declined valuations of e-commerce unicorns in 2016 when compared to 2015.

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BSNL is yet to get the department of telecom (DoT) nod for commercially rolling out 4G services while the Narendra Modi-led government is eyeing to launch fifth-generation or 5G technology together with matured markets worldwide in 2020.